


Crooked

by Naddy



Series: Crooked [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Almost How They Met, Attempted Ethnic Removal, Backstory, Headcanon, M/M, Narrated by Yondu, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 13:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4668290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naddy/pseuds/Naddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yondu turned back to his window. Hrax. Planet of poets and painters and shit. Planet of some of the worst legalized sentient rights violations he’d come across on Nova’s list of “highly advanced civilizations”. (And he’s seen a lot, being a Ravager and all.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crooked

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rough headcanon of what I think could have been Kraglin's home. Thanks to write-like-an-american for naming Kraglin's homeworld Hrax and letting me use it. I read through this and did a lil editing, but otherwise it's still probably rough in some spots.

With a beep from his computer, Yondu carefully slid out of bed, careful not to wake the sleeping man behind him, and softly padded to the window. They had just come in to orbit around a shiny, shimmering jewel of a planet, straddling the grey twilight line that divided day and night. Where the sun still shone the planet was reflective, bright silver. Metal coated buildings, towers, and homes covered the entire solid surface of the planet like grass and reeds. Yondu knew from his previous time on the surface that they were all gracefully built, expensive looking buildings, with towering arches and clean, crisp lines meant to inspire him (and his bank account) with their beauty. Sure, it looked nice, but there was nothing natural, no untouched space or growing green left on the entire planet. (And wasn’t that a _damn_ shame?) The night side of the planet was a plane of gold, with artificial lighting bouncing and refracting off the metallic buildings. It was a glittering ball of silver and gold stretched between emerald seas.

  


This was Hrax. The planet of poets and painters. The apex of artists.

  


Most of the galaxy’s most impressive pieces of work (people and art alike) had come from this planet. The whole damn thing was practically an art installation in itself, and anyone living on the surface could wipe their hands off on a paint rag, call it an original Hraxian piece, and sell it to some rabid art connoisseur for enough credits to supply his ship for a month. Even Hraxians themselves were pieces of art, bred carefully over the past centuries (with tax incentives for good looking families, no doubt) to be tall, willowy, pale skinned, dark haired, and graceful and floaty in any movement.

  


All the glamor and glory hid how much of a shithole the planet actually was, and if Yondu was an Accuser or hell, even a planet eater, he knew which planet he’d start with and it -

  


He was distracted from his thoughts to look at the stirring behind him, as Kraglin smooshed his body into the leftover warm spot Yondu had vacated, then started snoring. (They’ve both had their nose broken too many times to sleep quietly. Most Ravagers have.)

  
  


Yondu turned back to his window. Hrax. Planet of poets and painters and shit. Planet of some of the worst legalized sentient rights violations he’d come across on Nova’s list of “ _highly advanced civilizations_ ”. (And he’s seen a lot, being a Ravager and all.) Planet where the social ladder is actually, physically visible based on which level you live on.

  


Cliche as it is to say, Hrax is one ugly sonovabitch beneath the surface - and literally, beneath the surface. Six hundred Hrax years ago, the planet had been swamped in overpopulation, too little space, too little food, and too many ethnic groups who wanted the planet’s industry pushed in different directions. The elite families with more money than muscle won, and massive construction started hollowing out the planet and relocating the losers to the depths.

  


The layer just below the surface is reserved for a select group of Hraxians and machinery that tend to the huge, industrial hydroponic farms that raise food for the inhabitants. The levels below that are the factories that produce the bulk of what Hrax needs by way of manufactured goods. (And damn, but Yondu never thought after Xandar that he’d see a planet where grunt factory labor was a privileged job that people fought for.)

  


Genocide isn’t legal. But engineering a system where 80% of your population lives and dies never seeing the sun, eating the tinned table scraps you send down the chutes apparently is.

  


The Deeps and The Pits. That’s what they call all the levels below Factory. Layer upon layer of steel grate flooring, industrial flood lights, generators, power cables and pipes, with sheet metal shelters and holes carved into rock. Here and there is a Pit, a mine filled with criminals or desperate workers trying to find enough precious material to buy them space closer to the surface. Sometimes pipes broke and spilled hazardous waste, sometimes cables broke and sent electricity flying everywhere, hell, sometimes entire sections of a layer would collapse and snuff out hundreds. It wasn’t a pretty place, and it didn’t make good people. (Even though Yondu thinks Kraglin is good, he isn’t particularly _good_ good.)

  


Yondu was amazed people still even survived, even tried living in that place. Kraglin shrugged when he brought it up. Said living, breeding, existing down there was the greatest insult they could offer to the elite who hoped it would snuff out any talentless, wrong-clan undesirables after a few generations. By existing and breathing and fighting to survive in that hell hole, they were winning victories. Yondu will give ‘em that. (It’s like that in the wild too sometimes, when you’re hungry and cold and every breath is a testimony to the world that _you’re not done yet._ )

  


And he wouldn’t change how things ended up, universe dropping his first mate into his lap like it did, but sometimes Yondu wonders what Kraglin could’ve been if he hadn’t been molded in The Deeps, in mazes of pipes, strip mines, cables, and steel. If all the times he had gotten stuck in too narrow of a crawlspace or been too slow to dodge metal hadn’t busted his collarbone so often, hadn’t made him stand _crooked_ (a mark of ugly by top crust Hraxians, but a broken-bones crooked fact of life for those below). Kraglin still moves with a sort of grace, but it’s not floaty and bird like like upper crusters. It’s more primal, more predatory, reminds Yondu of things with sharp claws and sharp teeth that would lope in the bushes in the darkness outside the light of the village’s fire.

  


Yondu grew up moving in the forest, with open air, open space, and sunlight dappling through the trees, wind whipping through his clothes and across his skin.  First time Kraglin saw his own planet’s sun was when he followed Yondu up out of that hellhole. (More tenacious and determined than the giant rat-things they had, saw a way out and fought tooth and claw to get up to the surface, following Yondu, passing the first test.). Couldn’t believe a light that bright existed and was just floating there, bathing an entire planet with its glow like that, while millions were scratching food out of cans by flickering flood light below.(Damn near blinded himself staring at suns that first month with Yondu.) Couldn’t believe that wind existed that wasn’t made by giant fans cooling factory bellows.

  


But, Yondu supposes that growing like he did is what made Kraglin so good. He doesn’t drink or eat as much as someone his size should and he’s pretty resistant to a lot of chemicals that he probably shouldn’t have been breathing or drinking. He’s good at fixing stuff with whatever he’s got laying around, cobbling things together and gluing and glaring until they work. Krags doesn’t mind the canned, still air of a ship in space for months and months. (He thinks the ship’s air is better, it’s filtered and doesn’t carry toxins.) Kraglin thinks the hallways and rooms are bigger and better too, and he can stretch and not bump a ceiling or wall. Yondu can’t blame Krags for following him up so keenly like he did. The job that brought him down to The Deeps to meet Kraglin had him crawling through shafts that were claustrophobic at best, near suicidal at worst. It was painful to come from an entire forest to this small ship, (painful to lose that forest) but it must have been a relief to come from The Deeps to this much more open ship.

  


The first job he had on Hrax was a hunt for a fellow who took the pay from a ship’s job and ran with it, thought he could hide in the millions of below-surface Hraxians with his money until Yondu got bored. Didn’t count on Yondu finding the smartest, most capable Hraxian who count hunt him out. Yondu got his money and then some back. (Plus, he got Kraglin.)

  


This second job is gonna be a lot like the first. Idiot thought he could hide the tech in a hole on a layer somewhere in the Deeps, below the bedrock where the scanner’s can’t locate it.This time, Yondu won’t even have to waste time looking for someone to share the hunt with. (Idiot obviously didn’t realize the first mate Hraxian was Deep-raised and is gonna be able to poke around, ask the right people the right things, and navigate to his hidey hole before he has the chance to even realize they're there.)

  


Yondu turns away from the window and pushes his way into his warm spot, nudging Kraglin back towards the wall. Doesn’t bother waking his first mate to tell him they’ve arrived or a thousand other things he could say, and just huffs a breath across his neck. Kraglin probably knows.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Leave feedback, write questions, or, just say hi if I've made any glaring errors or forgot how to write.


End file.
